Our Sunday readings lately have highlighted the vice of envy. We have seen Jesus in the Gospel address the thorny subject of jealously among his disciples, when they argued among themselves which of them was the greatest. We have seen Jesus rebuke his own disciples when they indignantly challenged the right of man – someone who was not one of them – to cast out demons in the name of Jesus.
We have heard the story of Joshua, jealous on Moses’ behalf when Eldad and Medad began to prophesy. Moses replied: ‘If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets, and the Lord gave his spirit to them all’. Envy, disguised, perhaps, as fair-play or righteousness, can appear in any group and we need to be on our guard.
Shakespeare calls envy the ‘Green-eyed monster’. He says of envy, ‘it doth mock the meat it feeds on’ (Othello). St. Francis of Assisi was conscious of the harm that envy does and he warned his brothers against it. St. Francis avoided using high-sounding titles which might provoke envy with the brotherhood. He instructed the brothers who worked to refuse promotion and even to refuse payment in coin. Titles and material possessions can easily cause envy and feed the Green-eyed monster.
In one of his Admonitions, St. Francis counselled the friars: ‘Let those who are placed over others boast about that position as much as they would if they were assigned the duty of washing the feet of their brothers. And if they are more upset at having their place above others taken away from them than at losing their position at their feet, the more they store up a money bag (John 12:6) at the peril of their soul’. Admonition 3. The reference to the ‘money bag’ recalls Judas.
Serving others, for the love of God, helps us to defeat the Green-eyed monster. In another admonition St. Francis says: ‘Blessed is that servant who no more exalts himself over the good the Lord says or does through him than over what He says or does through another. A person sins who wishes to receive more from his neighbour than what he wishes to give of himself to the Lord God’. (Admonition 17).
Along with service a true spirit of fraternity helps to defeat the Green-eyed monster, for envy hates fraternity and grows by setting brothers and sisters against one another. St. Francis was constantly extending the boundaries of his fraternal life. He didn’t establish just one order, or two, but three! The spirit of fraternity, which aims to include more and more people, starves the Green-eyed monster and makes it helpless.
As we approach the feast of St. Francis on October 4th the lessons of serving others and true fraternity remind us how we, like St. Francis, can help put to flight the Green-eyed monster.
